Tear down the house that I grew up in
by Lastavica
Summary: The old farmhouse can't stay as it is if Clint's going to share it with the ones he loves.


Had to explore Clint's need to constantly remodel the farmhouse as mentioned in Age of Ultron. *

. . .

. .

Clint liked early summer mornings. He liked dewy spiderwebs and golden sunlight melting away the mist. He liked to walk the tree line and listen to the early birds as he drank his coffee. From there he would look at his farmhouse where his children were still asleep. He liked thinking about his kids. For most of his life he never imagined he would be a father. Really, he never imagined much of anything beyond SHIELD until he met Laura. Then together they imagined quite a bit and started their family in that old house. Clint was happy to replace its stale air with laughter. It was a beautiful home that deserved to have love under its roof.

The porch rails his children sat on, the fields they ran through, and the trees they climbed had all been his as a little boy. Unlike their own, his childhood had ended abruptly. Years of Clint's life passed before he returned to the farm as a grown man. The house seemed to have waited for him to come back and heal it from its dark past. He never asked himself why he chose to purchase his childhood home. It would've made more sense for him to have just burnt it to the ground. Natasha could have told him it was probably something about second chances, but he never asked her either.

As a boy, those trees he climbed were refuge. Those fields, his escape. The porch rails were a limbo where he waited, not knowing what violence might lie beyond the front door. The house itself had been a prison, Clint and his brother's sentence every sundown. As soon as they passed under the threshold the day's childhood pursuits were traded for fear, anger and swallowed tears. The joys of beginning a new life there with Laura were not enough to expel the ghosts. The memories dwelling in every corner would not be ignored. So he began knocking out walls. Laura welcomed the updates to such an old place. They worked on projects together and had a great time doing it. All the while, Clint was able to confront the past and make something new from it.

It started with the kitchen. The wall that separated it from the family room was the first to go. Whenever he looked at it all he could see was his father shoving his mother into it. Her tears, his helpless, and his brother's shaking fists. So he took a sledgehammer to it and opened it up into a friendly window connecting both rooms. Now when he looked at it, he usually saw his wife on the other side.

A lot of violence happened in that kitchen. Once, his father shoved Barney into the counter so hard that he broke two of his ribs. Clint spent too many weeks watching his brother try to hide how much it hurt him to breathe. He and Laura tore out all the old counters and the sink and replaced them with whatever she picked out.

They replaced the flooring in the hall where his mother once stood and said nothing while his father beat him with the buckle end of his belt. They repainted the whole upstairs, covering up the walls that had listened to so much crying and yelling. The sunroom behind the kitchen had been an enormous project, but well worth it. The old back porch that used to be there had rotted out and needed replacing anyway. Clint didn't want it back. It only reminded him of hiding. Hours of his childhood had been spent under there, hiding from his father.

The old tree house in the woods became a lovely bonfire. His big brother had made him a lot of promises in that treehouse. Clint would later rebuild it with his kids when they were old enough. The treehouse bonfire became one of Clint's favorite memories with Laura. It was a warm night. She was seven months pregnant with Cooper. They spent hours sitting together, listening to the crackling fire and watching the embers fly up and disappear in the stars.

They never replaced a single floorboard, rail or banister on the front porch. Clint sanded and repainted it. He liked it how it was because that was where he finally stood up to his father. He had gotten between him and his mother after the thousandth slap too many. It hadn't end well for him, but he always felt good about it. He, Laura and eventually their three children spent more time on that porch during nice weather than any other place in the house.

With the arrival of children the focus reset and Clint's demolition itch went dormant until Cooper and Lila were older. The house required no further transformation than what two small humans could bring. He worked on a couple more projects after Nathaniel joined the family, but then it just stopped. Clint never made a conscious decision. The need simply disappeared. The old farmhouse had been fully reclaimed from the past. There were no ghosts left.

. . .

* * *

*The scenes from Age of Ultron*

#1

Clint: "I'm gonna finish reflooring that sunroom as soon as I get back."

Laura: "Yeah? Then you'll find another part of the house to tear apart."

#2

Clint: "I know what I need to do. Dining room! If I knock out that east wall it'll make a nice work space for Laura. Put up some baffling. She can't hear the kids run around, what you think?"

Natasha: "You guys always eat in the kitchen anyway."

Clint: "No one eats in a dining room."


End file.
